You Gave Your Beloved a Thighmaster? Have Fun in the Dog House

It was a year when finances were a bit tight. So Maureen and Jerry Wood, both in their 20s at the time, promised to spend no more than $50 on Christmas presents for each other. But when Maureen Wood opened the present from her husband, she was shocked and disappointed by what she described as the ugliest sweatshirt she had ever seen. Instead of saying, “OK, where is my real present?” she feigned happiness and joy.

“I pretended to like it because Jerry’s parents were there,” recounts Maureen Wood, who lives in Buena Park with her husband of 15 years and their two children. “It was an ugly color and an ugly design. I returned it to a store where no one under 60 was shopping. It was something he would buy his mother, not me.”

In the ritual of Christmas and Hanukkah gift-giving between mates, there are bound to be occasional misses. Those misses can leave indelible marks on the psyche, not because people are materialistic but because gifts are a basic form of human communication. Gifts are potent symbols of love, essential messages that reflect how well one mate knows and understands the other, say psychologists and sociologists. With all that psychological baggage vested in gifts, it’s no wonder deep disappointment follows when a love offering fails to express an understanding of the recipient or doesn’t reflect the essence of the relationship.

“The typical disappointment is clothes of the wrong size, particularly if the gift indicates that one is too fat, too old or if the gift does not reflect the receiver’s taste,” said Theodore Caplow, a sociology professor at the University of Virginia. “Any gift that shows a lack of interest or familiarity is likely to be resented.”

The ideal gift for one’s mate must meet a few requirements, according to Caplow and colleagues who scrutinized the gift-giving habits of 350 Muncie, Ind., families in the late 1970s and the early 1980s and the gift-giving of 110 families in Middletown in 1978. In both studies, Caplow found that a proper Christmas gift surprises the recipient, shows familiarity with his or her tastes and costs an amount proportional to the value of the relationship. “Ideally, a husband’s gift says, ‘I value you more than anyone else,’ and a wife’s should do the same,” said Caplow. “Couples who were disappointed in each other’s Christmas gifts were most likely to break up.”

Naturally, miscalculations don’t always lead to splits. Some couples allow for the gift-buying impaired.

For years, one Pacific Palisades woman received gifts of exercise equipment from her husband for Hanukkah (a Thighmaster, an Abdominizer), birthdays (a treadmill) and even as an engagement gift (a “cheesy” stair climber). “I was incredibly offended and angry,” says the woman. “His agenda was ‘wife with tight butt.’ The gift was not about reaching out to make me happy. I would say, ‘Are you trying to say something about my body?’ ”

Her husband’s breakthrough gift one year was a suede jacket for Hanukkah, says the woman. And thankfully, she hasn’t gotten any exercise equipment since.

So what’s the proper etiquette when the gift from a mate disappoints? Does one tell his or her dearest that this gift, this symbol of love, with all due respect, is a zero? Or does the recipient forget about it and next year, sign their mate up for a remedial gift buying course?

Opinions vary. “The better the relationship, the more it can weather criticism,” said Ronald Podell, a Century City psychiatrist. “If it is done properly, it creates even greater trust. You say, ‘Thank you. I appreciate the effort. But this style doesn’t look good on me. I will exchange it.’ ”

Judy Kuriansky, a New York psychologist, disagrees. “It will hurt their feelings,” said Kuriansky. “Throw it in the closet and make a list for next year’s holidays.”

Maureen Wood didn’t hesitate in letting her husband know how she felt about that sweatshirt--once his parents were on their way. “I said, ‘What were you thinking?’ He said, ‘I thought it was nice.’ ” Wood doesn’t rely on the ritual of gift-giving to reaffirm her marriage. But she does make sure there is something under the tree she really, really wants: “Now I buy my own gifts and wrap them up.”